Cuba , the Value of Utopia

That the present is imbued with the past definitely applies to Cuba, where Fidel Castro has been in power since 1959. For the first two-thirds of this film, eyewitnesses, including Castro himself, look back on the period of resistance and the toppling of Batista's dictatorship. By zooming in on the individual within the collective, the detailed story of the revolution unfolds. In the oral tradition, various Cubans report on oppression, violence, arrests, kidnappings, shootouts, escapes, the guerrilla fight from the mountains and the subsequent triumphant entry into Havana. We see the narrators during their daily activities and hear them in voice-over. Their stories are interspersed with archive footage and pictures showing the beauty of contemporary Cuba. In the last 45 minutes of the film, the Cubans of the revolutionary generation muse on the situation on the island 47 years after the heroic revolution. The Cuban people do not live in the lap of luxury, they readily admit, especially after the collapse of Soviet Communism. They believe in concrete deeds, not ideological slogans. The price for freedom has turned out to be a high one, but they would not want to swap their dignified life for the banal consumerism that the United States forces on the world. Looking back on the revolution has its charm, but the upcoming battle will be more important.